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The aim of the study was to explore the professional identity development among student teachers in a five-year integrated teacher education programme in Estonia. Thirty-eight students in the first through fifth year of the primary school teacher education programme provided written stories about themselves as teachers today. The narratives were analysed both across different study years in the teacher education programme using inductive content analysis, and through in-depth thematic analysis of one case exemplifying the emergence of teacher identity. In the latter, Kelchtermans' professional identity model was applied. Findings indicate that the practice periods appear to be highly influential for identity development. In the students' development, phases similar to those identified in prior research emerged, with focus shifting from oneself towards teaching methods and skills and pupils' learning. Teacher educators can help students recognise these patterns and support the students in reflecting on the strategies they have applied in their learning and development and their ways of coping with challenges, and help them to identify personal working theories developed during the education process. This way the newly qualified teachers entering schools can be supported to become teachers with solid professional identities well-equipped to begin their careers in primary schools.

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This study investigates beginning teachers' relationships with their mentors as well as the collaboration between beginning teachers and their colleagues after five years of practice. One of the important roles of a mentor is to support the beginning teachers' collaboration with other teachers. Authors investigated the sustainability of the collaborative aspect of the induction program in order to determine if collaboration between beginning teachers and their mentors continues after five years of work and whether this collaboration extends to the beginning teachers' colleagues. Openresponse questions were chosen for discovering aspects related with the continuity of mentoring. More than a half of the beginning teachers continue collaboration with their mentors throughout a five-year period. These beginning teachers, whose collaboration with their mentors continues during the five years, are found to be more cooperative with other colleagues at school. One-to-one mentoring creates quality examples for teacher collaboration that are treated as the first step towards creating a professional learning community within schools. The novelty of this research lies in the longitudinal nature of the teachers who participated in the national induction year program and whose progress has been monitored throughout five years of work.